Tuesday at 6:30pm

Counterspin

Counterspin is FAIR’s weekly radio show, hosted by Janine Jackson, Steve Rendall and Peter Hart. It’s heard on more than 125 noncommercial stations across the United States and Canada. Counterspin provides a critical examination of the major stories every week, and exposes what the mainstream media might have missed in their own coverage.

Combining lively discussion and a thoughtful media critique, Counterspin is unlike any other show on the dial. Counterspin exposes and highlights biased and inaccurate news; censored stories; sexism, racism and homophobia in the news; the power of corporate influence; gaffes and goofs by leading TV pundits; TV news’ narrow political spectrum; attacks on free speech; and more.

:FBI director James Comey received praise for saying that police officers should recognize their own racial biases. But a new report says eliminating racism in criminal justice is about more than what's in a cop's mind. We'll speak with the report's author, Nazgol Ghandnoosh of the Sentencing Project.

Media are consumed with whether the authorization Barack Obama is seeking from Congress to wage attacks on ISIS "and associated persons or forces" gives the executive branch too much power--or not enough. There's no room left to ask whether authorization would actually make those attacks legal, much less what makes anyone think more military attacks are the solution to the crisis. We'll talk about those things with law professor and author Marjorie Cohn.

The head of the FCC has just announced new rules protecting the openness of the Internet. The vote is still weeks away, but if agency chair Tom Wheeler's proposal goes through, it would mean real Net Neutrality.

The victory of the austerity-rejecting Syriza party in Greece has some corporate media clucking about “financial chaos” in Europe, due to Greece’s unwillingness to “clean up its act.” But could it be that what elite media fear isn’t that Syriza will fail—but that it might succeed?

After the State of the Union address, one paper's headline was "Obama Pulls No Punches," but another said the speech consisted of "modest proposals," while a third deemed it "A Bold Call to Action Even if No Action Is Likely." What's the public to make of this exercise in political theater and the media's morning-after tea leaf-reading? We'll talk with journalist and activist Keane Bhatt.

Coverage of the recent state visit from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto didn't avoid mention of violence in Mexico, including the disappearance of 43 student teachers in September. But the explanations of that violence (and of the US relationship to it) hid more than they revealed. We'll talk with Laura Carlsen from the Americas Program and the Center for International Policy about the desaparacidos and the nature of violence in Mexico.

We're told the recent midterm elections were the "most expensive in US history," but who was buying? And what do they expect in return? And what does it all mean for the relatively unmoneyed, namely most of us? We talked with Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, about the 114th Congress.

We take a look back at 2014 and revisit some of the stories it's been our privilege and pleasure to bring you. We call it "best of," but the truth is we always work to shine a light on angles or perspectives on events we think you might not hear elsewhere ,and insights into why and how corporate media coverage comes to look the way it does.

It's hard to think of a time when a free press is more necessary than when the public needs to know about crimes committed in our name. So the release of a Senate report on CIA torture is a test for US media. We'll talk about the report and the media response with Baher Azmy, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

30 years ago, a gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people and injured tens of thousands more. But if you think of Bhopal as a tragedy from the '80s, you're missing the point: It was a crime and it's far from over. We'll talk with Amitabh Pal of the Progressive about the ongoing disaster of Bhopal.